Twitter Updates

May 19, 2015

Was the result such a catastrophic disaster for the Labour Party? There are innumerable headlines to choose from. Here's is one from the International Business Times:

SNP destroys Labour in electoral disaster for Ed Miliband as Conservatives set for Commons majority

OK, are there any members of the Labour Party left in Scotland? Are there any Labour councillors? MSPs? Of course. Are there any Labour MPs representing Scottish constituencies? Just one, a loss of 40 Westminster Parliamentary seats. Even if Labour had retained all its Scottish seats the Conservatives would still have been the largest party in the House of Commons with a small majority.

Labour won more votes than in 2010. According to the House of Commons Library:

Labour polled 9.3 million votes, 30.4% of the vote. This compares with 29.0% in the 2010 General Election.

And according to one vivid diagram in my Twitter feed today, Labour won more votes that any other party among voters in every age group expect the over 65s. I am still waiting for information about the source.

According to the HoC analysis:

Compared with the results of the 2010 election:

The Conservatives gained 35 seats and lost 11 (a net change of +24).

Labour gained 22 seats and lost 48 (a net change of -26).

The Liberal Democrats lost 49 seats.

The Scottish National Party gained 50 seats.

We know Labour lost 40 to the SNP, so Labour suffered a setback. But hardly one from which it can't recover, if it appreciates and can agree the lessons that need to be learned, and does something about it now.

January 26, 2015

Whenever I mouthed off as a child my parents encouraged me, in a kindly manner, to always practice what I preached. Today, I hope every member of Labour's front-bench will do likewise.

Uppermost in the minds of us labelled as the left of British politics is the victory of Syriza in yesterday's Greek general election - a victory for hope. The speed with which it concluded negotiations this morning to form a government - one hour - reinforces that message.

Syriza's leader, Alexis Tsipras, has taken political ambition to new heights, by taking on both the global neo-liberal and the Greek establishment. We all owe him heartfelt thanks. In comparison, the British Labour Party's ambitions are ambiguous to say the least.

Most recently, its shadow works and pensions secretary, Rachel Reeves, is quoted in today's Guardian newspaper applauding the London Borough of Brent for its innovative plan to cut the business rates bill for accredited Living Wage employers within its boundaries.

Speaking at the launch, she reportedly said:

“I want councils across the country to follow Brent’s lead by cutting business rates for companies who pay their staff a Living Wage. It’s a brilliant idea to tackle low pay which is good for everyone - workers, employers and taxpayers.

“It’s a scandal that one in five people who does the right thing, works hard and contributes, doesn’t earn enough to pay their bills. Low pay is driving up the benefits bill and leading to more Tory Welfare Waste and is making it harder to get the deficit down, with income tax receipts across the Parliament £70 billion lower than forecast in 2010.

“A Labour government will tackle low pay by raising the Minimum Wage to at least £8 hour before 2020, bringing in Make Work Pay contracts to get more workers paid a Living Wage and banning exploitative zero-hours contracts.”

Not a word about Labour's own pay policy towards the public sector other than a measly commitment to lift the National Minimum Wage (NMW) to £8/hour before 2020. Correction, that is a slight improvement on the original wording which was 'by 2020', revealed in an interview with the Observer published on 20 September 2014.

The standfirst for that piece proclaimed:

Labour leader says he would raise minimum wage to £8 by 2020 in move that 'reveals core party values'

Those of us with economic degrees know that you don't need one to know that inflation is likely to propel the NMW towards £8/hour by 2020, if not before. That, emphatically in my view, does not reveal core Labour Party values.

Core Labour values demand a more ambitious policy towards pay. The preaching has got to stop, until a coherent pay policy is agreed. Any journalist that misses the opportunity to challenge Labour Party spox about this should go straight back to journalism school.

I set out the case for a more ambitious approach over three months ago here. It is increasingly embarrassing to have Labour Party spox encouraging businesses and local government to adopt living wage policies, but remain silent about public sector pay in central government and other public bodies.

Labour must be honest with the electorate and show that the cost-of-living crisis is going to be tackled head on in, as Labour Leader Ed Miliband said in his New Year message, a 'Recovery for All'. That could be the start of offering real hope to UK voters.

January 21, 2015

Looking at the latest opinion polls, odds for political betting on seats in the next UK Parliament (note: not Westminster) the odds on a return to 2-party politics must be very long indeed. My own political life was shaped by simplistic descriptions of the ideologies of the two main parties in the UK. Conservatives/Tories stand for selfishness and greed. Labour stands for sharing and collective action.

One Nation Toryism forged out of experience post World War II recogognised that the old order shaped by the aristocracy was finished. But the nouveaux riches had other ideas. A succession of events starting in the early 1970s led to a neo-conservative project for the self-enrichment of the few and the recovery of baronial powers to subjugate the rest of us to a modern form of serfdom.

Spelling that out is Labour's challenge in 2015.

Green politics is a distraction. Any self-respecting Labour politician recognises that the planet is at risk from the selfishness of the 1%. Urgent steps are promised by Labour to tackle climate change. But it is not enough. Neither is the response to nationalism.

Much patriotic cant has been breathed by a deepening sense in the devolved nations of betrayal byWestminster governments past and present.

A return of UK government in May under Labour could be the key to whether two-party politics ever makes a return.

January 12, 2015

Labour Leader Ed Miliband's ambition to secure a majority of seats in the Westminster Parliament to govern the United Kingdom for the next 5 years may depend on the ground war. To spur on the rank-and-file, he has set a target of four million conversations.

The race is on to astonish the electorate, not to mention all those cynics who on hearing Miliband's target rushed to their calculators to tell us that the target would involve an impossible number of chats per member. I wouldn't have given the matter a minutes further thought if it hadn't been for my Twitter feed which threw up the stats for #Opflight - an activity of Progress. You can read the full details here. According to Richard Angell, Progress's recently appointed new director 4526 conversations were conducted on Saturday by their teams in nine key constituencies.

But what exactly is a Labour Party conversation?

Toby Perkins Labour MP for Chesterfield conveniently tweeted the Progress director's bulletin. Excuse for a conversation, I thought. So I asked Toby what is the Labour Party's definition of a conversation. Before he had a chance to answer, Mark Houlbrook, councillor for Thorne Ward on Thorne and Moorends Town Council, asked me what mine was. Reasonable riposte! We eventually agreed this was a relevant question and rounded on Toby to clarify. We are still waiting. But my initial suspicion that an agreed definition might be desirable was underlined by Manchester councillor Kevin Peel who trilled about 4,526 CONTACTS in Saturday's #Opflight venture.

So is a Labour Party 'conversation' a 'contact'?

Are 'Not Ins' contacts? We should be told.

My first doorstep experience was over 40 years ago in Leeds. The latest was on Saturday in Weymouth with 12 comrades mainly from South Dorset CLP - split into two teams each with a leader despatching and recording the results of doorknocking. In all those years of pounding streets, clambouring up and stairs, I have learned to cope with a reality: most 'knock, knocks' are abortive - no one answers the door. That's the lot of those of us who try to engage with voters. What matters are the contacts with those voters who do open their doors to a stranger. Local political party activists call to ask whether prospective electors plan to exercise their right to vote in the next election, and for which party. If the door opens a canvasser has a chance to offer the usual pleasantries, and the contact tells you what s/he will be doing in May: Don't know, Don't Vote, Haven't Decided, UKIP, Green and so on. In my book those exchanges can not be classed as conversations. Neither can the delivery of a 'Sorry you were out" leaflet through the letterboxes of all those unopened doors.

Checking over my notes from Saturday I personally knocked on 43 doors, made 20 contacts from the opening of 17 doors, and (by my definition) had just 10 conversations. For clarity, those are the number of times I had a informal verbal exchanges with the person who opened the door beyond the normal pleasantries, and the standard questions: Are you planning to vote in May? And for which party?

So I want to know, were those 4,526 episodes recorded by Progress - contacts, conversations or just number of doors visited?

November 06, 2014

How can Labour Party leader, Ed Miliband, possibly regain the electoral initiative in just six months? As avid readers of this blog will know, I have trying to make the case for a different way of formulating the UK national budget.

Here's my latest form of words:

Labour Party action following Scottish referendum – the budgetary challenge

Preamble

The outcome of the Scottish Referendum rejecting independence has inspired debate about devolution of powers from the Westminster Parliament. This resolution suggests a ways Labour Party members and their existing elected representatives can shape a settlement pending resolution of the wider constitutional issues. In particular it aims to address the aspirations of those seeking a fairer, more equal and prosperous society.

Resolution

This branch:

1. recognises the need to reunite the United Kingdom within a new devolved framework of government

2. considers that current UK national budget making arrangements divisive, top down from Westminster, and, therefore, inconsistent with such devolution

Therefore:

1. calls on the Labour Party leadership to adopt an inclusive approach to UK national budget making to encourage a national sense of purpose while at the same time enabling devolution of powers from the UK government

2. calls on Labour's leadership to invite Labour leaders in Scotland, Wales, London, and throughout local government to join in a new process of preparing revenue and capital budgets for FY 2015/16 and beyond

3. further proposes that these budget plans are coordinated between Labour's elected representatives to highlight issues that will need to be addressed by an incoming Labour chancellor of the exchequer after the General Election

4. opposes rigid adherence to Tory/LibDem spending plans in FY 15/16 as currently proposed by the Labour leadership

November 05, 2014

Minor changes to the Labour Party frontbench were announced earlier today following the resignation of Jim Murphy to muddy the water in the Scottish Labour Party.

The main news which did not form part of the official announcement was that shadow chancellor of the exchequer, Ed Balls, remains in post. What was significant was the appointment of Jon Trickett as keeper of the radical runes in the Office of the Leader of the Opposition.

A more conventional report of these events can be read on the New Statesman's blog The Staggers here

If that job for Trickett is going to make a real contribution to boosting seriously flagging party morale, then he needs to set a number of tasks for Balls that keep the radical agenda rolling.

Top of that list must be Growth4All versus austerity-lite. As set out out by Balls, Labour is committed to apeing ConDem public spending plans for the first year in government, ie 2015/16. There is a miserable and heart-chilling logic to this. Public expenditure settlements for FY15/16 will have been announced before the next General Election, along with the ConDems last throw (hopefully) of the budgetary dice with tax bribes to the electorate so outrageous that even the most gullible will realise they are being conned.

Balls' job is therefore to show his economic wizardry by feeding the party doorstep lines to reawaken electoral passion for Labour. It won't come from more of the same, austerity-lite.

Trickett could usefully get up to speed on pre-election inclusive budgeting (admittedly, still very nerdy at the moment), planning for living wage implementation, and setting timetables post-election for transferring tax and spend powers to local authorites, and lifting borrowing restrictions on devolved nation, regional and local government spending on infrastructure, especially housing.

This may seem a tad radical, but that we are told is why Trickett was appointed.

November 04, 2014

How could the leader of the Labour Party end up being shackled to his shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer? Ed Miliband must rue that early decision after his election to scrap the annual shadow Cabinet elections. That was supposed to give him the freedom to choose his own team. Instead it looks as though he threw away an opportunity to test the popularity of his frontbench team with Labour MPs.

Of course, this is not the first time that a Labour Party leader has been lumbered. But at least you might plausibly argue that in those heady days back in 1994 former leader Tony Blair had a deal with Gordon Brown. Together they were seen to be ready for government, and won.

Today, Ed Miliband is in a very different space. He is stuck with an economic spokesman who wasn't his first choice, and whose policies are indistiguishable from the ConDem coalition's. Most Westminster old hands would, and if asked will, argue that it is too late to do anything about it now. Well may be it's too late to sack Balls. But there is no reason why Miliband should not be making policy announcements publically that have support in the party and oblige Balls to comply.

Over the past month I have been posting occasionally, mainly on the theme of devolution and the little discussed role of UK budget-making in fuelling calls for transferring powers from Westminster and Whitehall. My article in the latest edition of Chartist inspired the cover cartoon by Martin Rowson - Balls and chain.

Yesterday, I attended an event at the University of Westminster organised by The Democratic Society, Involve, democratise and the university's own Centre for the study of democracy. Entitled 'Developing the space for a public conversation about democratic reform', this chat about a chat was the stuff consultation nerds get off on. But as the breakout sessions got going and discussion became more focussed, I realised here was a ready made opportunity to advance the idea of inclusive UK budget-making.

It took the Scots nearly 20 years to recover from an abortive referendum on devolution in 1979, when the majority in favour was less than the 40% of the electorate necessary to succeed. Today, no-one could doubt the appetite for democratic reform in Scotland with a massive 84.5% turnout, the highest in any election in the UK since the introduction of universal suffrage in 1918, nearly 100 years ago.

But it was the result of a conversation that started decades earlier.

Ed Miliband has barely six months to salvage his party's electoral fortunes in Scotland, and with it the prospect of securing a majority of seats in the Westminster Parliament. Holding him back is his shadow chancellor and formal rival for the Labour leadership. How can he conceivable capture the national imagination at this late stage?

Well, Miliband prides himself on standing up to vested interests, and there can't be a bigger one around the shadow cabinet table than the Balls/Cooper combo. I suggested devolution offered Miliband the chance to escape Balls and chain here. But weeks have elapsed and all that is on offer is a England Devolution Act transferring control of a modest £30billion to local and regional authorities. That style of hand-me down politics fuelled Scotland close to voting Yes to independence.

What is needed is a fresh approach to UK budget making - an inclusive one in which revenue and capital needs are worked out by local leaders and then shared UK-wide with a view to reaching a consensus about the national budget. Participatory budgeting could be added to broaden involvement. All it requires is leadership.

October 21, 2014

Britain needs a payrise. I would go further. The world needs a pay rise. The challenge is where to start. With less than 200 days to go to the next UK General Election, there is much to do. As set out the UK Labour Party's economic policies do not add up. This is not because of profligate, irresponsible policy commitments. Labour as the only prospective party of government post-May 2015 can not afford that luxury.

Extravagant tax giveaways as proclaimed by outgoing Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron at his party Conference last month are just that, giveaways that you have no hope of delivering. His only hope and that of his flailing party is that enough of the electorate will believe him to reduce an inevitable loss of seats in just over six months' time.

So the electorate needs help to refocus on jobs and growth. Ed Miliband made an interesting appointment last night bringing back Pat McFadden MP on to Labour's frontbench to lead on Europe. Britain's membership of the European Union is the bedrock of future jobs and growth. Miliband reminded people of that in his Conference speech, remembered sadly more for what he forgot to say than what he uttered.

Unless I'm mistaken, he did say:

David Cameron doesn’t lie awake at night thinking about the United Kingdom. He lies awake at night thinking about the United Kingdom Independence Party. UKIP. That is why he is doing it friends and I say pandering to them is just one more reason why he is not fit to be the Prime Minister of this great country.

Better together, across the United Kingdom. But also better together, true to our traditions of internationalism. And nowhere is that more true than when it comes to Europe and the European Union. Friends, let me say it plainly: our future lies inside not outside the European Union.

We need to reform Europe. We need to reform Europe on the economy, on immigration, on benefits, on all of these big issues. But here is the question for Britain. How do we reform Europe? Do we reform Europe by building alliances or by burning alliances?

Indeed. So Labour is up for a head-to-head on EU membership with UKIP and UKIP-lite (formerly the Conservative and Unionist Party). Cameron's kami-kazi tactics over EU immigration levels are a big boost for Labour general election strategists. As suggested by Polly Toynbee in today's Guardian newspaper, Cameron has reached a point of no return:

David Cameron has crossed the Rubicon. There is no going back. By proposing to limit free movement of labour from the EU he has planted himself on the side of the outs, as José Manuel Barroso made crystal clear in his Chatham House speech on Monday. The other 27 nations will never agree: if limiting national insurance numbers for EU workers is Cameron’s new red line then he has joined the Ukip wing of his party, who won’t let him renege.

This is very unsettling for UK jobs and growth. But every cloud has a silver lining. Labour has an opportunity to be much clearer about its relationship with business, and the role of markets.

Miliband set out a theme in his 2011 Conference speech, a year after being elected Leader:

Let me tell you what the 21st century choice is:

Are you on the side of the wealth creators or the asset strippers? The producers or the predators? Producers train, invest, invent, sell. Things Britain does brilliantly.

Predators are just interested in the fast buck, taking what they can out of the business.

This isn’t about one industry that’s good and another that isn’t. Or one firm always destined to be a predator and another to be a producer.It’s about different ways of doing business, ways that the rules of our economy can favour or discourage.

Now is the time to spell out more precisely what that means for UK-based businesses and what is in store in terms of an emergency budget next summer. Will it be austerity-lite or Growth4All?

Miliband has to create scope for liberating the UK economy, and local government in particular from the tyranny of Conservative and Liberal Democrat budget cuts. That in part depends on building alliances in the EU that encourage the SDP, Labour's sister party in Germany, and part of a grand coalition led by Chancellor Angela Merkel to back growth measures to help the Eurozone avoid Japanese-style deflation.

Miliband's uncompromising stance pro-EU membership is a start. This will be welcomed by British business. But as they would say: "There is no such thing as a free-lunch." The relative "success" of the UK economy in terms of growth, compared to our EU-partners, masks a dirty little secret - a historic prolonged fall in real wages in the UK, which directly affects millions of UK voters.

There is an understanding to be reached with both business and voters. Labour will set out a strategy to ensure a payrise for Britain. In doing so it will help make the case for a payrise in Europe too. Business can not be expected to agree a living wage plan if government is not practising what it preaches. Ed Balls should be tasked with setting out a budgetary plan to enable all government departments and other levels of government to pay a living wage by 2020, or sooner should economic conditions permit. Firms willing to pay their staff a living wage should be offered a tax break for each financial year the government works towards its own implementation target. Firms that claim poverty beyond that date should be put on notice of the introduction of an Ecuadorian.

That's the moment HMRC will be empowered to check the books of any business claiming poverty to see just where its money is going.

In the meantime, any business with staff obliged to claim working tax credits to make ends meet should expect to have the details of what the wage subsidy adds up to published annually in a report to the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. That should keep journalists on the red-tops busy with business scrounger stories in the meantime.

Over to you, Ed.

PS. I leave you to draw your own conclusions about the role of collective bargaining and sectoral arrangements in helping people secure better terms and conditions to cope with cost of living increases.

October 16, 2014

If you are interested in following the proceedings in the House of Commons yesterday on the National Minimum Wage debate tabled by the Labour Party the Hansard account starts here.

Labour's spox on business Chuka Umunna reiterated the known position on the living wage:

We recognise it is very challenging for employers to pay a living wage, so we would not impose it on them by having a statutory living wage. Instead, a future Labour Government will encourage employers to pay the living wage through new “make work pay” contracts. Firms that sign up to becoming living wage employers in the first year of the next Parliament will benefit from a 12-month tax rebate of up to £1,000, and an average of £445, for every low-paid worker who gets a pay rise. This will help firms towards a higher-productivity, higher-wage model. The measure will be funded entirely from the increased tax and national insurance revenue received by the Treasury when employees receive higher wages. Additional savings in lower tax credits and benefit payments, as well as increased tax revenues in future years, will cut social security bills and help pay down the deficit. Not just ensuring people are in work but that they get a decent salary when they are working, is the most effective way to reduce the social security bill.

All very worthy, but as I wrote yesterday, the time has come to address the unwilling in business who are quite content for government to subsidise wages. It is those businesses that should be labelled scroungers, not people in work on poverty wages. Labour party branches, constituency parties and affiliated trade unions should be demanding action now.

October 15, 2014

A significant shift in business thinking appears to be underway when it comes to pay. Guy Stallard of KPMG is a leading advocate for the living wage and serial tweeter @Guy_Stallard. Today he was egging on Labour's shadow spox for Business, Chuka Umunna, and Work and Pensions, Rachel Reeves, ahead of today's vote on Labour's plan to increase the National Minimum Wage to £8 by 2020. Stallard thinks political leaders should be congratulating Living Wage employers for doing the right thing. We won't have long to wait to see if any politician applauds those enterprises, large and small, charities, and publicly quoted that are proudly accredited living wage employers.

Today's debate highlights the feebleness of Labour's current position over pay in response to the cost of living crisis. It stems from a leadership failure to be clearly define the Labour Party's new relationship with the business communities post-crash.

Pay - a living wage - is an opportunity to be crystal clear about that new relationship. Pro-business, yes, but. There are various ways in which government can shift behaviour. It requires budgetary commitment. Government itself must become a living wage employer. That means all its contractors have to do the same, not just for the purpose of securing a particular contract, but in order to bid for government work at all.

Then there is the rest of the economy, where there are still some firms acting illegally and not even paying a NMW. There has to be a blitz on non-papers, and others who have found devious ways of cheating their employees.

Next, there are carrots. A year ago Ed Miliband promised tax breaks to reward firms that do pay a living wage, and those that need some encouragement. They would have to pay some taxes in the first place to enjoy any benefit. But that issue is outside the scope of this post.

Then there are those businesses that cry poverty. Well, handsome is as handsome does. There is no reason in practice and every reason in principle why reluctant businesses should be audited or means-tested. Failure to pay a living wage results in demands on the public purse in the form of working tax credits. It is the businesses that are the scroungers and should be clearly labelled as such, not low paid workers.